{"id":18803,"date":"2022-09-06T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=18803"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:12:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:12:04","slug":"the-return-of-the-summer-movie-single-issue-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/the-return-of-the-summer-movie-single-issue-thriller\/","title":{"rendered":"The Return of the Summer Movie Single-Issue Thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How\u2019s this idea for a movie sound: a couple of characters encounter A Big Problem, and then over the course of one or two hours (but not more than that), struggle to find a way to solve, escape, or survive it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re saying to yourself \u201chey, that sounds like every movie ever,\u201d well, you\u2019re not wrong. Yet it seems that, increasingly, that simple and generic description doesn\u2019t quite begin to sum up the majority of summer blockbusters made over the past couple decades. Beginning sometime in the late \u201890s or early \u201800s with oversized action and disaster epics, the blockbuster began to become unwieldy and complex, and the rise of the superhero movie has taken such excess to heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, thanks to the last few Avengers<\/em> movies, it seems every Marvel Cinematic Universe entry must be treated like An Event, a prerequisite assumed by not just the rabid fanbase but the filmmakers themselves. Take July\u2019s Thor: Love & Thunder<\/em>, for instance, which is a movie saddled with a ton of elements to juggle: the wrapping up of loose ends from Avengers: Endgame<\/em>, the reintroduction of supporting characters from several sequels past, the redefining of the title character\u2019s place in the MCU and, oh yeah, a new villain and convoluted plot for the film to hang a lot of riffing on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to this, it\u2019s easy to miss the blockbusters of yesteryear, the ones that largely dealt with a single issue instead of several. It\u2019s ironic that the notion of the \u201csummer blockbuster\u201d began with 1975\u2019s Jaws<\/em>, a movie that seems positively simplistic when compared with Netflix\u2019s The Gray Man<\/em>, a facsimile of a summer action flick that has more empty plot elements than a litter box has lumps. Even something as relatively recent as 1997\u2019s Breakdown<\/em> seems admirably old school in its construction and execution, a triumph of no-nonsense entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the tide seems to be turning back toward single-issue summer movie thrillers. There have been several box office hits recently that mark such a move, such as May\u2019s Top Gun: Maverick<\/em><\/a> and June\u2019s The Black Phone<\/em><\/a>, and in the last several weeks alone four releases have harkened back even further to the old school blockbuster days: Nope<\/em><\/a>, Prey<\/em><\/a>, Fall<\/em>, and Beast<\/em><\/a>. Each of these films have received favorable responses from critics and audiences alike, and in the case of Top Gun: Maverick<\/em>, The Black Phone<\/em> and Nope<\/em>, great box office to boot. Based on this small trend, it\u2019s entirely likely that we may be witnessing a fully-fledged comeback of the single-issue thriller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Granted, three of the films I\u2019ve cited\u2014Top Gun: Maverick<\/em>, The Black Phone<\/em> and Nope<\/em>\u2014may not seem as bare-bones simple as the others, yet they each have a direct focus to them as narratives that don\u2019t become clouded by excess. One of the miracles of Top Gun: Maverick<\/em> is the fact that it manages to be an excellent sequel to a 36-year-old film that doesn\u2019t feel the need to stuff in a bunch of elements immaterial to the story, all while including some fan service that feels more natural than cloying. It may even be a more direct movie than its predecessor\u2014where the original Top Gun<\/em> bookended its pilots-competing-for-a-trophy narrative with some test-your-mettle, life-or-death dogfights, Maverick<\/em> constructs its tale of people struggling with (or struggling to establish) their legacy around one major mission, and the joys of its extended third act come from a Rube Goldberg-esque series of complications rather than an entire plot shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of Rube Goldberg, it\u2019s to The Black Phone<\/em>\u2019s credit that it ties together several disparate characters and storylines in such a streamlined fashion. Maybe it\u2019s obvious or unfair to label a horror movie as a \u201csingle-issue thriller\u201d since one of the pleasures of the horror genre is its general simplicity. Yet it bears mention, especially since most recent summer horror films included  the adaptation of Stephen King\u2019s It<\/em>, the Purge<\/em> franchise and the Conjuring<\/em> series. While all enjoyable to various degrees, those films tend to be fairly diffused in their focus, while The Black Phone<\/em> (to its benefit or detriment, depending on your opinion) is far more single-minded, the movie working like a feature-length setup that leads to a crowd-pleasing payoff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jordan Peele\u2019s Nope<\/em> is a movie that is as multi-layered and rife with social commentary as the filmmaker\u2019s previous efforts, yet one of its pleasant surprises is how much of a throwback it is to classic summer entertainment. While the movie is suffused with themes of sensationalism, exploitation, the role of minorities in entertainment and the pitfalls of spectacle, at its core it\u2019s a film about a deadly creature terrorizing a localized area, forcing a small band of protagonists to attempt to deal with it. In that fashion, it\u2019s highly akin to Jaws<\/em>, an observation that many have made<\/a> and an analogy that Peele appears to have intended. It\u2019s a blend that makes Nope<\/em> a successor to the heyday of classic Amblin Entertainment features without ever delving into the stylistic trappings of, say, kids with flashlights on bicycles and so on. Spielberg built his reputation as a filmmaker who could deliver themes and messages in a continually exciting package, and Peele demonstrates that such a technique can still be mightily effective. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since Nope<\/em> is an \u201canimal attack\u201d movie with a unique twist, it\u2019s ironic that two \u201canimal attack\u201d-cum-survivalist thrillers were released this August. The more traditional of the two is Beast<\/em>, which sees a widowed father taking his two children to South Africa to connect with their mother\u2019s roots, only to find themselves stranded in a preserve with an enraged lion. Though the lion\u2019s attacks are prompted by its abuse at the hands of illegal poachers, the film wisely keeps its focus on the father and his family trying to survive\u2014and eventually defeat\u2014the titular beast. Similarly, the latest entry in the Predator<\/em> franchise (cheekily entitled Prey<\/em>) eschews the unwieldy and vague lore surrounding the Predator<\/em> series, taking things back to basics with the tale of a Comanche girl who takes on the task of defeating a single Predator as both a hunting rite of passage and as a quest to protect her people. There\u2019s no added plot bells and whistles to these movies, no fourth and fifth act, no setups for sequels\u2014when the beasties are defeated, the movie is over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most pleasant surprises this past month has been Fall<\/em>, which brings back the survival thriller in a big way. Here, there\u2019s no quirk of nature, act of God or mortal evil that confronts the characters\u2014it\u2019s the characters themselves creating and then needing to solve their own problem. The film follows the plight of two women who decide to climb a 2,000ft. decommissioned TV tower in the middle of nowhere, attempting to get their mojo back after the tragic death of a fellow climber a year earlier. Sure enough, things go south, and the film becomes insidiously simple: the women must survive long enough to find a way off the tower. Aside from a few brief cutaways to the father of one of the girls attempting to find them, the film stays tightly focused on the drama on top of the tower, making the movie that much more experiential and suspenseful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExperiential\u201d is the best key word to describe this new wave of throwback thrillers. While most are close in structure and form to the average horror movie, it\u2019s important to realize that they\u2019re not horror films per se, and therefore have a broader, more \u201csummer movie\u201d appeal. They exploit the cinema\u2019s immense power to create suspense and thrills while sacrificing little in the way of character building and emotional depth. In a culture that\u2019s been inundated with decades of \u201cprestige TV\u201d and its hours of needlessly extended narratives, it has become common for films to try and follow suit. This trend of more pared-down, single-minded thrillers seems to imply that filmmakers are rediscovering just how versatile and unique movies are, how they can amaze and titillate and engage inside of a complete and compact package. Seeing such a trend rising is, for lack of a better word, thrilling. \"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The summer of 2022 gave us multiple films that harken back to the glory days of the blockbuster, proving that a simple premise well executed can go far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":18805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381],"tags":[162],"class_list":["post-18803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21883,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18803\/revisions\/21883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}